The Getty Villa’s New Cocktail Offers a Taste of Aztec History
Its special ingredient has been enjoyed for thousands of years
The El Cosmico cocktail at the Getty Villa
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Have you ever wanted to drink like an Aztec? Now you can.
The Getty Villa and Latino Theater Company’s Antigone: In the Language of Kings presents Mesoamerican history on stage and on the menu. The specialty cocktail inspired by the show, El Cosmico, reflects a long cultural and social history that’s now part of the production’s concessions menu.
The drink’s star ingredient is agave wine, which not only tastes great but also connects to Aztec mythology and Mexican culture. This Antigone is a reimagining of the ancient Greek tragedy set in pre-conquest Tenochtitlan, intertwining Aztec cultural practices with the classic play. It will be performed at the Villa Thursday–Saturday, September 10–October 3.
Agave wine has a rich history intertwined with Aztec religion and daily life. El Cosmico pairs this culturally significant wine with pineapple juice, fresh orange juice, and ribbons of cucumber alongside a lip rimmed with tajin. Together, the ingredients connect both the ancient origins and modern uses of agave wine.
What is agave wine?
Récolte du maguey à San Martino (Maguey harvest in San Martino), leaf 13 from Mexique, 1865, 1864–about 1867, Louis Falconnet. Research Library, Getty Research Institute, 93.R.20
Agave plants, known more commonly in Mexico as maguey, are a family of thick-leafed succulents that sit at the crux of Mesoamerican civilization. Europeans nicknamed it the century plant, because, when transported to Northern European botanical gardens from Mexico in the 1600s, it took many years to bloom due to the change in climate.
Both tequila and agave wine are made from the sap, or aguamiel, of blue Weber agave plants. The primary difference is that tequila is made from distilling fermented agave juice, whereas the process of making agave wine ends with fermentation and does not include distillation. As a result, the wine has a much lower alcohol content. The menu also includes a nonalcoholic version featuring agave Seedlip.
The wine is sweet and earthy, and beverages featuring agave wine often utilize complex flavor layering, balancing it alongside spices, tropical fruits, or other herbal spirits. Kristin Nuss Farrand, the Bon Appétit sommelier who created the cocktail, says cucumber was chosen to help make the cocktail refreshing in the September heat, with the pineapple also adding to the crisp lightness.
“And then the tajin rim I felt just brought the whole Aztec theme full circle—just gave us that old-world flavor with a little bit of spice,” she says.
Maguey and Aztec mythology
One of the oldest and most important beverages made from maguey is pulque, a foamy, naturally fermented agave sap essential to Aztec religion that’s been around for at least 2,000 years.
Pulque was only drunk regularly by priests or warriors and given in special cases for its healing properties to pregnant women, the sick, and the elderly, as well as to sacrificial prisoners in order to please the gods. Before consumption, some of the pulque was poured on the ground as an offering to its divine creators. Fibers from the maguey plant were also historically used to make clothing and footwear, as well as fire and building materials, though pulque stood alone as a sacred gift. Around the period of Spanish colonization, the drink became secularized, and pulquerias (Mexican taverns specializing in the beverage) started appearing as a core part of daily cultural life.
El evangelista, 1930, Manuel Álvarez Bravo. Gelatin silver print. Getty Museum, Gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser. © Archivo Manuel Álvarez Bravo, S.C.
Mexican photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo captured multiple aspects of Mexican culture in his photographs, including this pulqueria. He is known for documenting burial rituals and decorations, among other forms of folk art. A number of his images are featured in Instante/revelación: Moments in Mexican Photography, a new exhibition at the Getty Center featuring the work of 13 artists who shaped Mexican photographic history.
There are many different myths regarding the origin of pulque and the maguey, including the story of Mayahuel, the goddess of agave and fertility. Her divine blood was considered to be the aguamiel that collects in the center of the plant, with her children representing the resulting drink’s effects.
References to Mayahuel, pulque, and maguey can be found in the Digital Florentine Codex, an enhanced, online edition of the early modern Mexican and Nahua encyclopedic manuscript, published as a part of the Getty Research Institute’s Florentine Codex initiative. The codex describes Mayahuel, the Mexica deity of maguey, and explains how she started the method of making the native wine as the first to know “how to perforate the magueys to extract the honey from which the wine is made” (bk. 10, fol. 143v).
Sahagún, Bernardino de, Antonio Valeriano, Alonso Vegerano, Martín Jacobita, Pedro de San Buenaventura, Diego de Grado, Bonifacio Maximiliano, Mateo Severino, et al. Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (Florentine Codex). Ms. Mediceo Palatino 220, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, MiBACT, 1577. Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, bk. 11, fol. 200r. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2023
Latino Theater Company’s retelling of Antigone using Nahuatl mythology to illuminate themes of faith and power brings El Cosmico’s use of agave wine into a historically significant light. These myths’ connections to strong women mirror the play’s fearless leading lady and are central to the cocktail’s featured ingredient. If you’re looking for a beverage with ties to cultural heritage, or just something that tastes delicious while you watch Antigone: In the Language of Kings, El Cosmico is sure to delight.
For the at-home mixologists out there, here's the recipe if you'd like to make El Cosmico for yourself!
El Cosmico
- 2 oz agave wine or non-alcoholic agave spirit
- 4 oz pineapple juice
- 2 oz orange juice
- 1 piece of cucumber ribbon
- Tajin rim
